126 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



he will cut down three or four times the quantity required, leaving 

 the residue without a thought, often not even using it for fuel. 

 Already, such careless procedure has entailed serious consequences. 

 The woods in. the neighbourhood of townships, and here and there 

 even those near the highways, are worked out, and appear scarce 

 better than those which the fire has devastated ; and still the work 

 of destruction goes on. It is only since 1875 that there have been 

 f orest-officers in Western Siberia, and even they give their attention 

 rather to the exploitation than to the renewal of the woods. 



Even where neither man nor fire has ravaged them the forests 

 present an appearance essentially different from ours an appear- 

 ance of complete, absolutely uncontrolled naturalness. It is but 

 rarely, however, that this attracts us. At first, perhaps, we are im- 

 pressed by seeing at one glance all stages of growth and decay; but 

 the dead soon becomes more conspicuous than the living, and this 

 depresses instead of stimulating. 29 In forests thus left in their natural 

 state, thick growth alternates with clearing, tall trees with mere 

 thicket, hoary senility with vigorous youth. Mouldering trees stand 

 or lean, hang or lie everywhere. From the remains of fallen stems 

 young shoots sprout; gigantic corpses bar the way within the thickets. 

 Willows and aspens, which, with the birch, are the most abundant 

 foliage-trees of Western Siberia, appear at times in irreproachable 

 perfection, and at times as if they had been persistently hindered 

 from full growth. Stems thicker than a man's waist bear tangled 

 crowns of small size, on which, year after year, fresh twigs break 

 forth without being able to grow into branches; other apparently 

 aged trees remain not more than bushes; and others, broken across 

 the middle, have their split, cracked, and twisted upper parts con- 

 nected to the trunk only by the splintered bark. Rarely does one 

 get a complete picture ; everything looks as if it were going to ruin, 

 and could advance only in decay. 



Yet this sketch is not true of all the woods in this vast region; 

 there are indeed woodlands, especially in the south of the zone, on 

 which the eye rests with satisfaction. Locality, situation, soil, and 

 other conditions are sometimes alike propitious and combine to pro- 

 duce pleasing results. The growth of the individual trees becomes 





